[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Damaskeened Armour of the end of the Sixteenth Century. (Portrait of François, Duc d’Alençon, from Montfaucon’s “La Monarchie Françoise.”)] used (Fig. 61). In the Museum of Artillery, in Paris, is preserved the armour which that king wore at the battle of Pavia. The body is longer than in the cuirass of the preceding century, the rib in the centre is more raised, the gusset of the shoulder-piece is made of several movable plates, and of large size. The _casque_, a generic name given since those times to all descriptions of head-armour, assumed a comfortable and elegant shape, which was maintained as long as the use of armour continued. Another cuirass of the same date, still longer in the body, was made to turn up towards the lower extremity, and then took an inward bend to fit the hip. It was made with movable plates overlapping from below; this allowed the wearer to stoop, which it was almost impossible to do when the breast-piece and the back-piece were in one. Sometimes these plates were only three or four in number over the stomach, and the others over the breast were only represented, not genuine plates. The armour called _à éclisse_, or _à écrevisse_, worn at a certain period by the halberdiers, must not be passed over; it received this name because the cuirass was made of horizontal plates (_éclisses_), three or four inches in width, which, though they covered the entire body, did not in any way impede its movements. We must, however, refer to a peculiarity in this armour which prevented its general adoption; it was that as the movement or “play” of the _éclisses_ made it convenient to wear, so from this flexibility it was found that the plates frequently became disconnected, and thus left a part of the body defenceless. In making the _éclisses_ to overlap from below, regard was had to the usual direction of a sword-cut or dagger-thrust, which usually came from below; but there was all the more danger from blows of the _martel_[9] and battle-axe, the stroke of which weapon was directed downwards. Bronzed armour came in about the middle of the sixteenth century, and was somewhat commonly worn in 1558; it was introduced on account of its being far more easily kept clean than polished steel. For the same reason black armour was tried, but the engravings and chasings, the gildings and damaskeenings were more effective on the greenish ground; consequently black varnish was given up in favour of bronze. At the end of the sixteenth century, and during the long civil wars which desolated France, armour took a variety of shapes, and as regards ornamentation at least, there was generally to be seen a strange medley of the style of the previous century with that of the period (Fig. 61). However, the decline of the use of armour, which became in a measure inevitable, was at hand.